From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   He Foiled Benedict Arnold. His Medal Is Now Out From Under the Bed.   
   By Christopher Kuo, July 21, 2023, NY Times   
   The American militia men were hidden in the bushes having lunch and playing   
   cards when they heard the horse galloping toward them. Springing from their   
   lookout post near Tarrytown NY, they confronted a stranger who was seemingly   
   in a great hurry.  He was    
   Maj. John André, head of British secret intelligence. But on this day, Sept.   
   23, 1780, he was disguised as a civilian, “John Anderson.”  Stuffed in   
   André’s boot were papers that laid out how to successfully take the   
   American fort at West Point.    
   He had only received the info two days earlier from Benedict Arnold, the   
   commander of the fort, and André now was riding south in the hope of getting   
   back behind the British lines.   
      
   But the militia men, John Paulding, David Williams and Isaac Van Wart,   
   questioned André, realized he was a spy and arrested him. West Point was   
   never attacked, André was later hanged and Arnold, whose name became   
   synonymous with treason, fled.   
      
   Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart were recognized by the Continental Congress   
   with hand-wrought, silver military medals, now considered to be the first ever   
   awarded to American soldiers. Two of the 3 were stolen from the NY Historical   
   Society in 1975. But    
   the third, held by the Van Wart family for more than two centuries, has now   
   been given to the NY State Museum in Albany, where it will go on display this   
   fall.   
      
   “As the only 1 of the 3 out there, it’s such a unique medal,” said Sara   
   Mascia, the executive director of The Historical Society of Sleepy Hollow and   
   Tarrytown. “It’s invaluable. I don’t think you could put a number on   
   it.”   
      
   After Van Wart died in 1828, the medal was passed down in his family until it   
   reached Rae Faith Van Wart Robinson, a descendant living in White Plains. It   
   became her prized possession, and until she died in 2020, she kept it in a   
   shoe box under her bed,    
   taking it out occasionally to display at events hosted by the historical   
   society.   
      
   “It was the one thing she cared about,” said Henry Neale, the lawyer   
   representing the executor of her estate.   
      
   Mascia said Robinson, who did not marry and had no siblings or children, found   
   the account of her distant relative’s pivotal role in American history   
   stirring. “She would say, ‘I’m so proud of my ancestor,’” Mascia   
   said.   
      
   Neale donated the medal to the NY State Museum in Feb, based on Robinson’s   
   wishes that it be given to a museum where it could be seen by the world.   
      
   “I love it because it’s a story of three regular guys that happen to be   
   major players in national and international events,” said Jennifer Lemak,   
   chief curator for the NY State Museum.   
      
   When André was captured, the outlook was not promising for the American side.   
   The British were ensconced in New York City. The Continental Army had largely   
   run out of money and supplies, and the fortress at West Point was one of the   
   remaining barriers    
   to a British advance. If the British could secure West Point, they could   
   simultaneously connect to their troops from Canada and sever the American   
   forces by splitting New England from the rest of the colonies.   
      
   “If Washington and the American patriots had lost West Point, we would have   
   lost our independence,” said Cole Jones, associate prof of history at Purdue   
   Univ.   
      
   Van Wart and his two companions were young farmers in their 20s who lived in a   
   region battered by the war. Sandwiched between Washington’s forces in the   
   Hudson Highlands and the British army in Manhattan, Van Wart and his neighbors   
   lived in no man’s    
   land, where bands of loyalists called “Cowboys” waged guerrilla warfare   
   against bands of colonists called “Skinners.” Both parties ravaged the   
   Tarrytown residents, scorching their farms and plundering their fields.   
      
   To guard the roads and protect their families, the residents had assembled   
   their own militia, which is why Van Wart, Paulding and Williams were in the   
   bushes near the Albany Post Road when André came by.   
      
   The handwritten papers he was carrying exposed West Point’s operations and   
   vulnerabilities. Detailed notes outlined the position of artillery, described   
   the size of the American forces and depicted the nature of the fortifications   
   a British army laying    
   siege would face. Arnold had sneaked away from his post to deliver the papers   
   to André at a clandestine meeting in the town of Haverstraw.   
      
   But André’s ship, which had been parked in the Hudson, sailed away to avoid   
   American artillery and the spy found himself stranded, forced to escape, if he   
   could, by land.   
      
   Van Wart and his two companions might not have uncovered André’s true   
   identity if it had not been for Paulding’s coat — the green, red-trimmed   
   coat of a Hessian mercenary that Paulding had acquired while imprisoned by the   
   British. Seeing the coat,    
   André mistook the men for allies and asked if they belonged to the “lower   
   party,” meaning the British. This immediately raised the men’s suspicions,   
   which led to further questioning and ultimately the search that led to the   
   papers in the boot.    
   André tried to bribe the men, but failed and they handed him over to American   
   forces.   
      
   “These three men, in capturing André and saving West Point, saved the   
   Revolution,” Jones said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that their heroism   
   on that day prevented the British from seizing arguably the most strategic   
   position in all of North    
   America.”   
      
   News of André’s capture traveled to Washington and to Arnold, who managed   
   to escape to the British camp. The three men met with Washington and each   
   received his medal, as well as a plot of land and a lifetime annual pension of   
   $200, a princely sum at    
   the time. (U.S. officials view the Purple Heart, of which a precursor was   
   created in 1782, as the nation’s oldest military medal because, unlike the   
   decoration received by the militia men, it is still being awarded.)   
      
   During his imprisonment, André captivated many of the upper-class American   
   officers, including Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette. A genteel   
   poet and amateur sketcher who was fluent in three languages, he could wield   
   both the pen and the    
   sword. Unlike Van Wart, an illiterate farmer, André struck some as the   
   embodiment of the gentlemanly ideals embraced by so many upper-class American   
   officers.   
      
      
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